Debate Tournament

This past Saturday was the first ever debate tournament that I attended. Yes, I know that in highschool most of my friends did debate, even my sisters did, but I did not.
So this is how I ended up at a debate tournament of all places.
When I was returning home on Friday night from a Persian New Year's celebration/ Birthday celebration I came upon one of the senior 6 students at my school. After the normal pleasantries I asked what she was doing on Saturday (since I had thought something was going on at my school). She told me that nothing was happening at the school tomorrow, but she would be going to debate in the morning and that I should come to watch. She said they would be leaving at 7 am. I figured what else am I doing at 7 am, so I said sure I would like to go. Come Saturday morning I was ready at 7 am, but we of course did not leave till 7.30. 20 students from my school went. The debate 'coach' would be meeting us there I was told. So we all piled on the bus that had come for us. As soon as the bus pulled out of the school the girls asked the driver to put on music and put it on loud. The driver put in a tape, and I'm not kidding when I say the song that came on was "red, red wine." And yes all the 20 girls knew the words; it gave me a good chuckle.
Now on the bus with us, other than the driver that is, was a police man. Since I didn't know why I asked one of the students, and she informed me that it was because the police were sponsoring the debate. It should be noted that at the time I had no idea what that statement really meant, but I would soon find out.
We shortly arrived at our destination, we only traveled far enough for us to listen to 2 songs, to the dismay of the girls. Now this is where for me it got good. We pulled into the National Police Headquarters; which for those of you who do not know is a huge compound/base in Kigali. Well when I was told the police were sponsoring it, it also meant they were hosting it.
I'm not going to lie, I was really excited, I mean its not every day one gets to be inside of a national police headquarters. As we were unloading from the bus another police officer came and told us that we could walk around for a bit while we waited for the other schools to come. I didn't have to be told twice, I got moving, I wanted to see as much of the place as I could. Although I wanted to, I figured it would be best if I didn't take pictures while I was wondering. I believe I amused my students with my curiousity.
After the second school arrived we were ushered into this other compound within the compound. Within the next half an hour 3 other schools arrived, so that there was a total of 5 schools. Essentially it was the 5 best schools of Kigali(private and public). The students proceeded to greet eachother and just be students. This was all very interesting to see how they mingled amongst the private and public school students. Also some of the students from the private school were foreigners.
After a bunch of waiting we were directed into a conference room. There we waited for more time. I finally found out that the reason we were waiting was because the commision general of the police force was running late and we were waiting for her(yes it is a women in charge).
When she had finally arrived, we could finally start, it was now approx. 10.30 am. She began with some brief words and then quickly passed it off to an officer from the CID who then did a short presentation on the current crime rates in Rwanda. Then the actual debate tournament could be started.
From each school there were 5 students(+or-)who would be debating. These students were called out of the conference room and divided into 8 teams of 3 students (I have no idea which school did not have 5 students participating). We then had 4 teams stay in the conference room, and the other 4 teams went to another room. Then half the audience was divided to go watch in the other room.
The format of the debate went like this. First affirmative or negative positions in regards to the motion were assigned to the first two teams. They then had 5 minutes to make their game plan. Then the first speaker of the affirmitive team had 6 minutes to speak. Then the third speaker of the negative team had 3 minutes to ask questions or cross interegate the first speaker. The first speaker of the negative team then had 6 minutes to speak, followed by a 3 minute cross interigation by the 3rd speaker of the affirmitive team. This same scheme repeated itself for the 2nd and 3rd speakers for both sides; the only difference was that they only had 5 minutes to speak instead of the first speaker's 6 minutes.

Immediately after the first pairing of teams finished, the other two teams went up and the process started all over again. I will admit I was a little confused that the teams not participating got to watch what the other teams said.

So what was the motion they were debating over? The fact that Rwanda wants to involve its youth in crime prevention and reduction.

After the first two pairing finished, it was time for lunch. When lunch was finished the judges announced the winner of both pairings. Then those two winners debated against each other. Meanwhile this same format was happening in the other room with the 4 other teams. In the end each room had 1 team that was the winner, the rooms came back together again and these 2 teams debated in the finals to have a final winner.
This was all very interesting, but I will admit at times also a little boring, since it was the same topic debated each time, and almost every group made the same points.
The only thing I did not think was fair, though I know it was fair. The team that ended up being the final winners, for each of their rounds they had the affirmitive position, which I think was the easier position to defend.
My main observations was that the teams which had the negative side had a hard time coming up with substantial points/arguments and the confidence that they were believe what they said. Now I know that they didnt believe it, and I was talking to my students in the audience about this, that the point of debate is not whether you believe it or not, but you try to make yourself the stronger team by having the best arguements and by being able to pick apart what the other team said in cross examinations.
This in my opinion is where many of the students lacked. Now I think the main reason is that they are not fully comfortable with the English langauge so they don't know how to use ceratin words to give themselves an advantage or how to word a question so that you stick the other teams with saying something they did not want to say, but I guess that comes with time and experience. No surprise the 'best' debater went to a white boy. And I am not saying that he was not good, but in my opinion half the time his opposition was just so overwhelmed with the speed in which he spoke and flumixed by how he worded his questions they could never gain proper footing when he spoke to them in cross examinations or when they were cross examinning him.
Also in my opinion there were many openings that the negaitve teams had to try and win some points, but most of the time the students did not use them. The biggest chances they lost out on was the affirmative teams' usage of such definitive words, such as always, proven, or perfectly. These are powerful words to be used when arguing and I believe it could have given them a chance to score some points.
Though at the same time I believe that all the affirmitive teams failed to point out one of the most obvious points. So each negative teams argued that by using the youth in crime prevention and reduction they would be exposing the youth to bad things. They then went on to say the only role of the youth in the country was that they must go to school and be educated. What confused me is that not one group pointed out that by having the youth go to school and recieve an education that in itself is a from of crime reduction and prevention.
I also found it interesting that not one negative group asked the affirmitive teams how they would ensure that if the youth were used there would be some oversight so that the youth were just not being programmed to do something, aka ensurance that someone in power could not abuse it and make himself an army of youth(which we have seen happen in parts all over the world).

But hey, what can I say really, they are only students, and who knows how much experience they have in debating. While even though I have never formally debated, I am an expert arguer who has different life experiences so I can look at a topic differently from them.

Oh side note-- At one point of the debate I had to really restrain myself from not making too big of an outburst, I managed to control myself to only making a snort/laugh sound. You see in one of the cross examinations a students asked for an example of a stable African country, and the other student said Madagascar. Clearly the student had not been following the news this past week, cause if they had, they would have known that that example might not have been the best to use.

Well in the end the debate tournament was a lot of fun for the students, and I was definietely happy that I had come to watch it. On the way home the students had asked the bus driver to take the long way home so they could listen to music longer. On the radio an Akon song came on, and of course ALL the girls LOVE Akon, so the bus was filled with 20 girls screaming the words as loud as possible, all I could do was smile.

The only other thing to note about this day was that when I had agreed to go, I did not know it was a tournment or that it would take all day. We left school at 7.30 am, and did not return till roughly 6 pm. HA. and here I had wanted to run errands and see people from my program. But on the other side I did get a free lunch out of it, not to mention I was inside the National Police Headquarters.

Oh I forgot one more thing. The names of the two teams in the finals. When the man in charge introduced them as "the eagles", the team replied we fly high. The second teams was introduced as "the creme cakes," and what did they respond but we taste good..HAHA...

Sorry one more thing. Today in school I had a few teachers tell me they saw me on TV on Sunday. I had known that the debate tournament was being taped, and a few times they panned the audience, well guess what I got filmed, and I was on Rwandan tv..hahahaha. :)

March Madness-- I can't get enough of it

Right now in the US it is one of my favorite times. It is the lead up to march madness aka the NCAA bball mens tournament. Obviously one of my favorite times is the actual tournament.
Well yesterday I got my own bball experience. I will admit I have not attended many basketball games in person, but I am an avid tv watcher..haha
So here is the run down. Yesterday afternoon my school had a basketball and volleyball game against another school. The basketball court and the volleyball court are right next to each other. I would say over half of the school turned out to watch. The school we were playing was co-ed, so some of the fans that came to watch for them were boys, which only added to the madness. And let me tell you it was madness. Students screaming, singing, and gesturing, and the same goes for the coaches and the players.
The boys who were watching would try to get loud, but the girls from my school would have none of that.
One incident was brutal. The court the girls play on is blacktop, yet that did not stop either team from sliding and diving for that ball. Lets just say a lot of blood and skin was left on the court yesteday (luckily it rained at the end of the game so it was all cleaned off..haha). Well this one girl from the other team took one nasty fall and was a little slow to get up, and her one leg was clearly scraped up, and the same went for her 2 hands, and the side of her face. Now she stayed on the ground but the ref didn't call anything, and the opposing coach yelled what I would assume was not the nicest statement. The girl tried to get up, but she was in pain so it looked ackward as heck as she hobbled off the courst. Well what do you know, all the girls from my school totally start making fun of her and calling her out on her injury. I was like damn, these girls are harsh.haha.
But honestly overall it was a lot of fun to watch. Maybe not needless to say, but my school won. We destroyed them.
I know I didn't get to touch much on the volleyball, but my school won that too, but it was a little more evenly matched. An interesting thing I noted was how they keep score. So normally everyone that I know if they are going to make tallies they draw 4 vertical lines and then 1 line through those and that means a count of 5.. Well here they draw a cube and then a diaganol through the cube to signify 5, so for 25 points you get 5 cubes.interesting right. (well maybe not, but at the time it was interesting to me).
I also had fun talking with the girls about the words for different actions in the game because they only knew the french equivalents, like set, spike, dig, free throw, ect.
Overall a good day and I can't wait to watch the next game(lets just hope my school keeps winning).

On a side note-- I am the 'coach' for the soccer team. We were supposed to have our first game on wednesday but the other school ended up not having a team..which I must admit I was okay with, because although we have a team, we don't really. As in I have no idea who is on my team. On tuesday I had asked the sports cheif(a student who is in charge of all sports for the school) to make me a roster..haha.. desperate right. Wll either way once I know whats going on with my soccer team I am sure I will write about it. :)

Bollywood Time

This past saturday night I was invited by some of the girls to come to the dining hall and join them in watching a movie. I have known that almost every weekend they watch something. Popular choices are bollywood films, nollywood films(from nigeria), and american TV shows like prison break and one tree hill. Most of the times when I have been invited to come it has been during the afternoon when I am not at school, but this past saturday night I was home and excited to go.
The girls had first told me that it would be a Nigerian movie in English, but obviously when I arrived I knew this was not true. There were about 50+ girls crowded together in one corner of the big hall because that is where the TV is. And it should be noted that the size of this TV is 'small' in comparision to what most U.S. families have. I have no idea what the title of the movie was, but man was it good. In typical bollywood fashion there were elaborate dance numbers that just seemed to burst out of nowhere during the film. Since the film was subtitled in English I was paying close attention because I had to read to konw what was going on. This little fact did at first puzzle me, as in how many of the girls could really follow along with the subtitles? I guess I will never know.
Around the first song/dance number I realized that the girls had seen this movie before. The reason I could figure that out is because they all sung along..haha.. it was actually pretty cute.
Now the movie itself. I won't get into too much detail, lets just say a daughter has to save her family from financial disaster be becoming a high-end escort in Bombay, but her family does not know about it(the mother suspects). Her younger sister comes to Bombay and makes a go at in the buisness world where she meets her husband to be..(her education had been financed by her sister's profession).. Of course the escort sister falls in love and feels it cant work because she would have to tell the truth. After a heartfelt conversation with her mother she decides to tell the man what she does, and he accepts her anyway(he had already known).. and guess what??.. they get married. The end of the movie is that both sisters are happily married and are singing and dancing..
I'm not sure a movie could get much better than that, just saying. Hopefully next weekend they will watch another Bollywood film, because you know I am hooked now..haha...
PS-if someone could find the title of the movie and let me know, that would be great!thanks.

Lookin Smart

Normally in the United States if one wants to pay another a compliment about their looks they might say, "you look good", or "nice outfit", or even "you are pretty/handsome in that." And then if one really looks good they might be told they "are hot." Here in Rwanda they go with the "you look smart" when they like the outfit that you are wearing; this goes for both men and women.
Now in the past 2+ months I have had my students tell me I look smart. It usually happens on the weekend when I am wearing my 'hang around' clothes [remember my students must ALWAYS wear their uniforms].
Well on Friday I decided to wear one of my dresses. It was the first time that I had a chance to wear the dress because I finally bought black shoes that I could wear with the dress (I had only brought brown shoes).
As I was walking to my first class I literally stopped girls while they were walking. Other students ran out of their classrooms or crowded to the window to see me; All of them saying, "teacher you look smart."
I will admit that this made me smile, I mean who doesn't like to get a compliment, but still I found it a little amusing to have all these girls telling me I look smart. Even during break time when I was in the staff room I had fellow teachers telling me that I looked smart. After break when I was walking to my next class I once again bombarded with students telling me how smart I looked. At the time I did not know but another teacher was walking behind me, and as I had students making comments to me he would then come behind me and ask the students, what do I not look smart..haha. Oh how it made me smile. Just think if I had worn the dress a month ago I would have been a sensation... and to think when I wear my other dress I can be a sensation again..haha :)

Who Would Have Known

This past Saturday was the last Saturday of the month. On every last Saturday of the month herein Rwanda they have what is called Umuganda. This is essentially a national community service day, and it is serious, everyone does it.
In Kigali the city is divided into sections or divisions and then each of those is divided into smaller cells. This makes it easy to know what you have to do. Each 'cell' has community leaders and they decide what people should do, so it is normally not everyman for themselves. Now since I live at a boarding school I have missed out on the action. Well I am lucky enough to have great friends who are willing to let me stay at their house and so I can then do community service the next morning..haha..
On Friday night we went to bed semi-early because we had been told to be ready at 7 am and we weren't sure what kind of work we would have to do. Last month I was told they picked up garbage around the neighborhood.
Well 7 am came 'round and no knock on the door...around 9.30 that knock happened. The neighbor asked us if we had a machete like tool(I had never seen such a tool in the U.S., it is like a machete, but it is longer and at the bottom it is slightly bent...and it is not a sickel).. Of course my friends said that no they did not, and the neighbor said thats okay we will find one for you to borrow. Hearing this I immediately decided a camera was needed.. Oh I forgot to mention that the tool is used to cut grass.
Then we set off. Walked about 20 minutes and ended up real close to Lyce di Kigali(where my friends teach). It ends up we missed the work, but we had made it in time for the monthly meeting(the work for that month was to cut grass around the roads and areas not in use). Being the three white people at this meeting made it easy for fellow teachers of my friends to find us and they offered to translate so we would know what the meeting was about.
At first the meeting was discussing how at the end of the meeting they would be holding local elections(well over 100 people were in attendence). Then they went on to discuss local community issues. High ranking people in the community got to go to the 'front' and talk. One of those people was the headmaster of Lyce di Kigali(note that Lyce di Kigali is the number one public school in the country and has just over 1000 students total[which is alot]). This man is highly respected and when he spoke, people listened. He discussed the drug use at the school, and how the one poorer area of their community(the slums) was selling drugs to the children and how we as a community can not tolerate that. He also said that students try to 'escape' from school and they are hidden in the slums, which also cannot be tolerated. He then shared a story about how one of their most promising students, he had scored the highest on the O-level exam(after 3 yrs of secondary school), but then he fell into drugs and now has fallen in rank.
After the headmaster spoke a few other people got up and spoke.[note we were all just standing in a horseshoe with the speaker in the middle/front]

This is when the story becomes hard.
A woman steps to the front. She speaks shortly and then a murmur goes through the crowd. A man is then called to the front. My friends and I are then told in almost a whisper that the woman is accusing the man of sexually violating her. My friends and I just looked at each other.
The woman begind to speak. Even though I could not understand a word she said, I could hear the emotion in her voice. The woman even began to cry. but she did not stop speaking, she kept on going.
We were told that she was saying that after it had happened she had reported the act to her local leader and nothing was done about it, hence why she was now here infront of all this prominent community members to tell her story. Throughout her story the crowd reacted to what she was saying, but I have no idea which 'side' they were on. I also want to mention that the entire time she was speaking, the man was standing maybe 3 feet away from her.
After she was done, the man had a chance to speak. He denied that it happened.
Then came the local leader that had been told initially. He said that it had been investigated but their was no physical evidence, so it was decided that it did not happen.
After he finished speaking, another man started to speak.

At this point my friend got a little light-headed because of the heat and the fact that we were packed together and didn't really get fresh air. Her husband suggested we leave, and I was okay with that. We walked a little bit away so my friend could sit and catch her breathe. That is when we started to discuss what had just happened.
It was like we could not believe that had just happened. They told me at last month's meeting they had just discussed what future projects they would work on for the community service days...
This was obviously a special case, but still.
My friend pointed out that he had been in awe that all these people had been holding the machete-like tools during this 'discussion.'

A few questions came to my mind, and I will ask them of you.
I have always heard that in the United States it is hard to get women to speak about their assualts, let alone accuse the person who is standing near by, so how much courage did that woman have??
I have also heard that many women feel shame about what happened to them,so they do no want their neighbors/friends to know, well this woman stood up and told the most prominent members of her community what had happened to her, so how much courage did that woman have to overcome the shame?? (because surely by nightfall everyone not at the meetings would know about it)
Also knowing that she had already reported it and nothing had happened, she spoke out again, how much courage did that take??


I know there is a chance that the woman was lieing, but either way I will never forget the emotion that poured from her voice as she spoke; she was either a great actress or a woman deeply wounded.

And to think we had started the day out expecting to do some work, and instead we end up hearing a woman accusing a man of sexually violating her, who would have known.